Yesterday’s Washington Post featured a story on District of Columbia parents who escape the horror of the public school system by sending their kids to suburban schools, at a price. Fine story, top to bottom.

But what got me going was the quote from a parent in the story. Mila Salazar hit the jackpot when she got her daughter into Bethesda-Chevy Chase high school, a place of learning that’s about a million times better than the best in D.C. Salazar brought her daughter up in the Palisades neighborhood of the District, according to the story.

As it turns out, Salazar didn’t want to enroll her daughter in an expensive private school, for all the obvious and right reasons. And she didn’t want to leave the District. Why?

“We’re not suburban types,” Salazar told the Post.

You live in Palisades, yet you’re not a suburban type?

Hmmm, let’s have a look. Palisades is a heavily-lawned, extremely wealthy neighborhood with few multi-unit structures. Most people there drive to do their errands. There’s no Metro. Its zip code is nearly 90 percent white. It’s Karl Rove’s local home. It has one of the whitest July 4th parades in the country.

Point here is that Salazar is talking in outmoded stereotypes. The ‘burbs, by and large, have become the loci of diversity in this region and many others around the country. Perhaps Salazar, in saying she wasn’t a suburban type, meant that she didn’t like diversity and ethnic eateries and the rest of the suburban mix. But somehow I doubt it.

Photograph by Darrow Montgomery

The Palisades and Foxhall neighborhoods are lovely places. They’re in the city, but not really in the city at the same time. A bus takes them downtown without transferring (city amenity). They have nice yards (not-city amenity). There are restaurants and shops within spitting distance (city). Trees are everywhere (not-city). They live in bungalows and Tudor-style residences (not sure how to classify that one.)

Well, anyhow, residents of these high-priced hoods are flexing their non-city civic muscles these days, in opposition to a plan to locate 41 new town houses on a large property on MacArthur Boulevard. Via the Dupont Current comes this quote from resident Benjamin Shaffer: “This is too dense of a development.”

Oh yeah, 41 new homes: Four-lane Mac Blvd. is going to be sooo congested now. The Mac Safeway, where you can often roll grapefruits down the aisles without hitting anyone, is going to be backed up to the seafood counter. But look on the brights side: With all these new residents, perhaps there’ll be enough of a demographic to open the movie theater again!

The Black Restaurant Group is close to finishing a 30-plus-seat addition to BlackSalt that may or may not become an exclusive tasting room. If christened such a room, the new amenity would immediately place the Palisades seafood emporium among the handful of elite D.C. restaurants that peddle fussy, chef-driven, multi-course menus for those willing to pay a premium. So why the hesitation?

There’s apparently a difference of opinion at BlackSalt about the merits of a full-time tasting room. “We’re in a pretty hard debate about what the actual…spirit of this thing’s going to be,” says Jeff Black, co-owner of BRG. “I’ve been pushing for the tasting menu. Danny [Wells], my chef de cuisine here, he’s got some apprehension. He’s just worried about the kitchen being able to handle the load.”

The room in question used to be a dentist’s office, which BRG secured and is in the process of converting into a private dining room. To reach the space, diners will walk through a refrigerated wine room that has replaced the elevated, 16-seat dining area at the back of BlackSalt. “Yeah, it’s a little bit different,” Black says. “My wife [Barbara Black] thinks I’m nuts. She’s like, ‘You’re going to bring people through like a $70,000 wine inventory?’ I’m like, ‘Yup, right through it.’”

What kind of room those diners will enter may be decided next week. Wells, Black says, is concerned that his kitchen could struggle to turn out dozens and dozens of à la carte dishes for the main dining room while also plating more than 50 multi-course meals. But Black believes that the menus for the main BlackSalt dining room and bar could be manipulated to relieve the extra burden that a tasting menu would put on line cooks.

But really, I ask Black, couldn’t he just demand that it become a tasting room? I mean, he is the boss.

It’s “just the way that this company’s set up,” Black says. “I realize that for things to be successful, my managers have to embrace [ideas] as their own. So I’m not standing here on the side, saying, ‘Yes, this is a tasting room, and you have to do X, Y, and Z.’ I’m campaigning for it, and I’m laying out my arguments. The managers are laying out their arguments why it should be X, and they’re good arguments.”

Still, Black concedes, “It’s a pretty strong probably that it will be a tasting room.” Whatever it becomes, look for the room to open some time next month.

The Palisades 4th of July Parade has long been a place for D.C.’s pols to flex their campaign muscle with an election approaching. Question was, with the seemingly endless 2006 election season finally over, would the usual suspects continue to pull out all the stops on MacArthur Boulevard, or would this be a lower-key affair?

Nope—the keys stayed plenty high.

Now, I got to the parade about 20 minutes late, hoofing across town on my bike, apparently missing Adrian Fenty and a couple of others. But some notes on the rest of the lineup:

As usual, you can break the folks down into riders (folks who like to stay on high ground, taking in the big picture) and walkers (those really into the nitty-gitty, low-to-the-ground work of governing).

The Walkers: Ward 3 Councilmember Mary Cheh, Ward 4 Councilmember Muriel Bowser (pictured above), Shadow Senator Michael Brown, At-Large Councilmember David Catania.

The Riders: Ward 7 Councilmember Yvette Alexander, Shadow Senator Paul Strauss

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The Starland Cafe closed Sunday night, but don’t expect bitter recriminations from the eatery’s investors. Rather, the group showed their appreciation to Starland owners Bill and Joan Danoff by coughing up more dough to send the couple to Ireland for a week’s stay in a country cottage, airfare included.

A brunch and live-music staple in the Palisades neighborhood for 10 years, the location will soon become part of the Capital Restaurant Concepts empire (Georgia Brown’s, J. Paul’s, Paolo’s, Old Glory, et al.). The closing-night group of neighbors and well-wishers were serenaded by Jon Carroll, Bill Danoff’s partner in his previous venture, the Starland Vocal Band. Carroll arrived from the Wammy Awards, which he left before hearing his name called as winner in the Pop/Rock Instrumentalist category.

No word yet where jazz drummer Brooks Tegler will take his Sunday-evening jam sessions.

Friday is payroll day at BlackSalt, Jeff Black’s Palisades fish market and restaurant. It’s the day when Black’s accounting team hands out employee checks totaling more than $20,000, but last Friday morning when the owner checked the restaurant’s bank balance on his way out of town, he was shocked to find that the SunTrust account was practically empty. An electronic scam artist had somehow convinced BlackSalt’s credit card processing company to divert BlackSalt’s receipts since Aug. 31—more than $67,000 worth—to a new account at Citibank. Black has no account at Citibank. He’s never even stepped foot in a Citibank.

Investigators are apparently still trying to get to the bottom of the scam. At first, Black says, both banks thought an employee inside Citibank had helped set up the rerouting ruse, but by Wednesday, the story had changed. Jon Linck, director of operations for the Black Restaurant Group, which includes BlackSalt, believes that someone with SunTrust sent a notice to Citibank to change the routing of the restaurant’s Visa and MasterCard receipts to an account at Citibank. “How that can happen without signatures or verification,” Linck says, then pauses. “I’m just baffled.”

For the record, a spokesman said on Wednesday said that Citibank still has no official record of the bogus BlackSalt account. BlackSalt’s merchant-services account rep with SunTrust did not return a pair of phone calls on Wednesday.

Because an estimated 98 percent of BlackSalt’s customers pay with credit cards, the restaurant didn’t have enough cash to cover payroll on Friday. So Black wired money from his personal account—a transfer that cost him $300—to cover payroll, but that cash was gone by the beginning of the week and there were “still a lot of checks written last week that are starting to hit the account,” Black said on Monday. SunTrust, Black said, has agreed to waive all overdraft charges, but the two banks are apparently still arguing over who will cover the $300 transfer fee.

The good news—and given that Black and his wife, Barbara, have had a rash of hard luck recently, they could use some—is that the stolen money was still sitting in the Citibank account. The cash had not been transferred offshore, as Black had feared. Citibank returned the cash on Wednesday, Linck says. But, unfortunately for BlackSalt, the damage has already been done.

“The bottom line is it’s still gonna show up on my record that a lot of checks [are] being cashed with insufficient funds,” Black says. “I’ll have to get letters written. It’s just a mess. It’s just a huge mess.”

Habitual mayoral candidate Faith may have a rival in the political-performance-art business.

At the Palisades July 4 parade, LL was on the lookout for something different—a candidate willing to set aside all the usual BS and tell it like it is, a high-impact politician.

LL found his man: a large but energetic middle-aged white guy standing up in a VW Beetle and wearing a panama hat. The sign on the side of his car said simply “Vote for Andy.” The crowd wasn’t sure what to make of this candidate, but his boundless energy drew a few cheers from clueless parade fans. LL figured he overlooked Andy at the Ward 3 candidate forums, but his hand-made campaign sign gave no indication of the office he is seeking.

When LL approached Andy, the candidate’s goal became a bit more clear: “I’m running for the highest-paid public office on the ballot,” he said. He also gave his full name as Andy Behr. Like any good office-seeker, LL figured Behr would have some kind of handout, or at least provide some way of getting in touch with him. No such luck.

When asked where he could be found, Behr responded, “You’ll see me on the part of the ballot where they put candidates for the highest-paid offices.”

Every Tuesday and Thursday, we run down what’s going on in local Internet discussion groups.

AdamsMorgan
James, of Friends of Marie Reed, wrote to wax poetic about the elementary school’s sixth-grade-graduation festivities, followed up with a plea for donations. “Graduation day has always been very special at Marie Reed. For the sixth graders it is the proudest day of their young lives, and if you’ve ever witnessed the tears of joy, the bubbling excitement, the looks on the faces of their parents and teachers, you would agree there is no moment like this. It is our community at its very best!” Ed wasn’t buying it. “I thought a graduation ceremony was a reward for having obtained a degree or rreached a goal. 6th grade? get real,” he replied.

cleveland-park
Things remain as highbrow as ever in Cleveland Park. John’s looking for someone to edify him on a couple of hot-button physics concepts. “I’m seeking an expert on Maxwell’s equations and entropy who might give me some personal guidance. I’m not a student and don’t have a course I need to pass, just a dilettante lawyer trying to clarify my internal disorder. I hope I don’t have to pay too much but I’m more than willing to make their time spent worthwhile in some creative way.”

Palisades
Meanwhile, they went lowbrow in Palisades, with a spirited dog-shit debate. Patrick lead off: “I stepped in dog poop in my grass this morning on my way to work. I don’t own a dog. It’s a bit annoying. So could those of you with dogs please scoop your poop.” Aglue told Patrick to get over it. “I’ve stepped in plenty of poop before. Sucks. Finding a twig to dig out the poop from your shoe is the worst. Somehow though, I don’t think posting a message to this board will be effective in keeping poop off your shoe. As long as there are dogs in the world there will be owners that don’t scoop up after them…it’s a fact of life. I think I’ll pioneer a designer colostomy bag surgery for dogs. There’s a fortune to be made in that market.”